EXCLUSIVE: They can publish a Mohammed cartoon, but not these charts

The Spokesman-Review published an image of Mohammed (also known as Muhammad) that offends many, with editor Gary Graham saying

“The cover illustration itself is a significant news development and I believe we have an obligation to our readers to let them see it for themselves and form their own opinions about it.”

The “Mohammed” charts of Spokane: the charts that must not be seen!

The Spokesman-Review believes it is not important for readers to form their own opinions about the airport and Public Facilities District usage trends.

Click on any chart for the full size version. See previous posts on this blog for additional information, sources, other confirmations of the data, and the raw data

Propaganda

“In this sense, propaganda serves as a corollary to censorship, in which the same purpose is achieved, not by filling people’s heads with false information, but by preventing people from knowing true information. What sets propaganda apart from other forms of advocacy is the willingness of the propagandist to change people’s understanding through deception and confusion, rather than persuasion and understanding.” SourceWatch.

There is no longer much purpose for this blog. The problems are apparent: lies, the liars that tell them (see this blog for a long list of tall tales, lies and local myths and exaggerations), deception, fraud, and the propaganda industry that enables this culture (and the latest set of lies). No one gives a shit that everyone here lies all the time. Indeed, bull shit is the area’s leading economic output.

That is the end of the story. Our questions have been answered.

From “The X Report”, good bye.

Continue on to re-read our final words reprinted from an earlier post.

Telling Outright Lies is the Local Pastime

A selection of prominent lies and the liars who tell them is listed here.

The chart cannot be spun – Spokane has recovered about half of the jobs lost in the economic downturn while the State and the nation have recovered more than 100%. By hiding this from readers and viewers, Spokane’s local media censors the news through “lying by omission”. Except for The Inlander, perhaps. (Note – former SR staffer Ryan Pitts left the SR to work on CensusReporter, a tool to make it easy for reporters to obtain Census data in easy to read charts. Tools exist. It’s not hard to illustrate stores with charts. But its hard to spin actual data.)

The outright lies and exaggerations are non-stop – hence, Spokane remains the scam and fraud capitol of America – but the zero credibility local media itself is complicit in re-telling and defending the lies (follow the links on this blog to see specific examples of the local media’s participation).

When land speculation is one of the top 3 industry clusters and the media is conflicted with land ownership and development, reporting is warped.

The public has been intentionally kept in the dark as to the true state of Spokane – but many have seen these issues for a long time. Out of town visitors arrive and often the first thing they say is “Spokane looks like a run down dump” (check out the very old crumbling buildings with peeling paint to weeds growing out of the streets and sidewalks in August and you can see why).

This blog shed a light on the truth that has been hidden from the public – by showing the actual data, in simple to read charts, that directly contradict the local memes and the local liars. Data is the enemy of the propagandists.

Share this:

Related

About

In early 2009 I wondered why several prominent businesses had closed and moved elsewhere and began to look into figuring that out. This web site is the culmination of a part time hobby in understanding why many companies closed or left Spokane.

Click on the "Start Here" link. I was surprised to learn these problems have been around for decades and are documented in official reports on the region's economy.

This web site is based on actual data. Because much of the data is sour, that may be misinterpreted as cynical. There is a difference between realist and cynical. But regarding the review of 30 years of economic strategy reports - that's borderline cynical and with good reason.

The purpose of this web site is to share what I found - not to pick a fight. Data sources are usually referenced; some data had to be re-typed by hand and I could have made a mistake. Some data sources could be out of date or might not make sense - I've tried to identify those. Some may be wrong - that happens - consider this like the rumor web sites and verify for yourself. May be my interpretations are hare brained. Please post corrections in the comments. I hope the information is useful to you. Thank you. If you spot an error, please leave a comment with the correction.

This web site is automatically specially formatted for mobile phones and iPad when accessed from those devices.